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Vegans are accused of being misanthropic so often that it’s practically part of the lifestyle. By caring about animals, one inadvertently volunteers to be criticized for failing to care sufficiently about humans. Of course, these critiques aren’t particularly well-grounded: Animal rights proponents are more likely than others to advocate for human rights, vegans score higher on EQ assessments than non-vegans, and brain fMRI research has shown that vegans have stronger neural empathy responses than meat-eaters when presented with images of human suffering. By every available measure, vegans care more about humans than omnivores do.
However, this data misses a far more significant issue with assuming vegans are misanthropes: Going vegan, and persuading others to do the same, is good for humanity. Vegans profoundly reduce human suffering and give our species a better chance to flourish. As strange as it might sound, one can give other animals zero moral consideration and still go vegan for ethical reasons. So long as one possesses some shred of concern for the human species, adopting and advocating a vegan lifestyle is simply the right thing to do.
